An Israeli drone strike in southwestern Syria has injured several people, the country’s foreign ministry says, in the latest of near-daily Israeli incursions and attacks in the area. Syria’s official Alikhbariya channel reported on Saturday that a man was wounded when an Israeli drone hit his truck near the town of Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying in a statement that it had targeted “a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in their final stages of preparation” in southern Syria.
The activity “posed an immediate threat to our forces”, the military added. Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that Saturday’s strike resulted in several civilian injuries. It said it “condemns in the strongest terms” the targeting of a “civilian vehicle” by an Israeli drone.
Saturday’s strike hit a small delivery truck on the main road between the Beit Jinn farmland and the town itself, said Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Adham Abu al-Hussam, reporting from the area. He is in stable condition with an injury to his right hand, according to a medical source. Abu al-Hussam said residents had reported Israeli reconnaissance drones flying over the area for four days.
Beit Jinn, which lies near Jabal al-Sheikh and roughly 55km from Damascus, has been repeatedly targeted in the past year, including in a late November raid that killed 13 civilians, he said. Muhsen al-Mustafa, a security and strategic researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in Damascus, told Al Jazeera that the attack could be Israel sending Syria’s government a message. That strike, he said, signalled that Israel’s declared security zone “isn’t limited to the south” but “extends even to Abu al-Duhur airport”, roughly in the middle of the country.
A Syrian diplomatic source told Al Jazeera that Damascus remains committed to de-escalation and is pursuing a security arrangement with Israel through United States mediation, based on the 1974 disengagement agreement.
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